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A Storytelling Machine:
The Complexity and Revolution
of Narrative Television
Alberto N. Garca
I want you to take your time with it. Pay attention to the
language itself. The ideas. Dont think in terms of a beginning and
an end. Because unlike some plot-driven entertainments, there is
no closure in real life. Not really. (Wish Someone Would Care,
9.1)
Treme, the evolution that television narrative has undergone in the last
fifteen years is condensed: sophisticated, innovative, complex, long-
term and aimed at a viewer schooled in narratology. From
complementary, though sometimes conflicting, perspectives, gambles
such as 24 (FOX, 2001-10), The Wire (HBO, 2002-08), Arrested
Development (FOX, 2003-06; Netflix, 2013), Lost (ABC, 2004-10), Mad
Men (AMC, 2007-15), Fringe (FOX, 2008-13), Louie (FX, 2010-) or Fargo
(FX, 2014-) have boosted the Anglo-Saxon television to the top of the
narrative Olympus, converting it into a privileged, constantly-evolving
mechanism a perfect storytelling machine. Throughout the course of
this analysis we will examine how and why this has occurred.
1
Cfr. Mittel 2015.
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2
Cfr. Newman 2006: 21.
3
The ability to capitalize on a product with international sales as well as
the constant competition between the cable and commercial broadcast
networks has led it to become increasingly more common to find, on the
traditional networks, 13-episode seasons, anthology series and even
miniseries such as 24: Live Another Day (FOX, 2014), Rosemary's Baby (NBC,
2014) and The X-Files Miniseries (FOX, 2016).
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
4
In Britain, television series are usually shorter; it is rare to find one
longer than ten episodes. In addition, it is relevant to note the fondness of the
British for the television miniseries format. To learn more about the
peculiarities of the production system of the British television drama, see
Arthurs (2010) and Dickason (2010).
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Between, vol. VI, n. 11 (Maggio / May 2016)
alone series and the continuous narrative (serial)5. That is, Conan
Doyle as opposed to Charles Dickens; The Adventures of Arsene Lupin
versus Balzacs Human Comedy; CSI (CBS, 2000-15) versus The Wire.
Transferred to the television format, the former is born of a
balance that is broken at the beginning of each episode, so that the
peripeteia of the protagonists involves restoring the lost order: solving a
riddle, finding a culprit, curing a patient, winning a court case or
learning a lesson. Each of the cases solved by the hero of Baker Street
offers the same type of closure as an episode of House M.D. (FOX, 2004-
12). As a result, in series with stand-alone stories
This does not imply that episodic series make a clean sweep of
what happened in previous chapters and lack memory. The important
thing is not a characters memory which, although it may be very
slight, obviously has to exist in order to ensure the internal coherence
of the text, but of the spectators, who need no memory of the previous
episodes to understand and appreciate the present one (Newman
2006: 23).
The Dickensian model, linear and cumulative, stands in contrast
to this cyclical structure, in which the episode is a measure of length,
never a reset. On television, this protracted narrative, with extensive
arcs divided over several chapters, was traditionally reserved for the
miniseries and, from a low-brow perspective, reached its culmination
in the British soap opera, with a potentially infinite number of
5
Series refers to those shows whose characters and setting are recycled,
but the story concludes in each individual episode. By contrast, in a serial the
story and discourse do not come to a conclusion during an episode, and the
threads are picked up again after a given hiatus (Kozloff 1992: 91).
5
Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
there are conflicts that open and close each installment (the dates
themselves) and, finally, the constant variation of settings and
characters that characterizes television anthology. For its part, the
unclassifiable Louie mixes fragments of stand-up comedy with a couple
of stories in each chapter. However, this constant break in continuity,
where there is even an actor changing characters from one episode to
another, clashes with a third season in which the same story extends
for six chapters (Elevator, 4.6-9.6).
Without reaching the organized chaos of Dates or Louie, it is
customary that the most ambitious contemporary series combine, from
an artistic point of view, elements of both the serial and stand-alone
episodes. Robin Nelson has called this hybridization flexi-narrative,
and Jason Mittell has studied it under the category of Complex-TV.
Both authors examine the prevailing narrative architecture of
contemporary narrative seriality, knowing that some lean more
towards the serial in nature and others the stand-alone episode. Thus,
the current television narrativeif we may be permitted the
metaphorresembles a cyclists racing tour: there are stages (seasons)
which, in turn, have several goals and mountain passes (episodes), in
which the immediate effort of the sprint is rewarded, without losing
sight of the ultimate victory at the end of the course, after all of the
stages have been run (the series finale).
There are currently several series with an atmosphere similar to
that of The Wire, series that favor backstory and utilize the entire
season as the main narrative unit, such as Friday Night Lights
(NBC/Direct TV, 2006-11), Sons of Anarchy (FX, 2008-14), Breaking Bad
(AMC, 2008-13), Boardwalk Empire (HBO, 2010-14), Downton Abbey (ITV,
2010-15), The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010-), The Hour (BBC, 2011-12),
Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011-) or Homeland (Showtime, 2011-). Some
stand-alone plots can be found in all of them, but their approach is
novelistic, and their explicit goals from the pilot onwards is that of a
long-distance runner.
By way of contrast, there are a handful of top-tier series which
give considerable weight to their episodic elements without neglecting
strong serial conflicts, unlike shows such CSI, NCIS (CBS, 2003-) and
8
Between, vol. VI, n. 11 (Maggio / May 2016)
the like, where they are very secondary. As Innocenti and Pescatore
explain, narrative formulas now go through a process of mutation
and hybridization, and many series [the stand-alone ones] are
serialized, moving closer to the structure of the serial (2011: 34). This
twist, they assert, creates a kind of story in which there is always a
central story that concludes in the episode (the so-called anthology
plot), but also a framework (known as the running plot) prolongs
itself over many episodes (ibid.). Thus a non-permanent progression
and partial opening narrative absent in the traditional formula is
added (ibid.).
The series that took this hybridization to the limit was The Shield
(FX, 2002-08): the adventures of Vic Mackey fascinated viewers with
their careful narrative composition, one of the most refined examples
of the stand-alone narrative, combined with extensive story arcs. The
police officers of the Farmington district are faced with cases that last a
single episode, stories that run for three or four episodes, seasonal
villains and a conflict that crawls along, twisting and turning, for the
shows entire seven season run, from the mark of Cain in the explosive
pilot episode.
This mixture of the two narrative axes was also employed to great
effect on Dexter (Showtime, 2006-13). Showtimes serial-killer exhibited
an iterative cadence by means of two elements: the victims the
protagonist has to execute each day, and the villain that refreshes the
plot each year by offering a new season arc. Southland (NBC/USA
Network, 2009-13) also exemplified this narrative elasticity, offering
viewers another novelty. To the traditional two or three cases per week
and the handful of transverse lines that unfold in full each season, were
added the brief vignettes of everyday police life: minor clashes with
crime in a city wounded by fear and filled with nutcases. Naturally, the
larger conflicts of the protagonists are settled in the season-long arcs,
but are suitably spiced up by the other two narrative structures present
in the series.
Among the arsenal available, there are two series that stand out
for the elasticity of their narrative structure, which can vary greatly
from one season to another without losing the hallmarks of identity of
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
the story they are telling: Justified (FX, 2010-15), and Hannibal (NBC,
2013-15). The first, a kind of western-noir, managed to oil the episodic
elements with the background pattern, making both elements feed
back into one another. So, the first season was, above all, a crime
drama that hinted at the painful background conflicts in Harlan
County, Kentucky: an ecosystem of ancient quarrels, parent-child
struggles, impossible redemptions, racial tensions and coal-mining
corruption. In the second, third and fifth season, without ignoring the
case of the week, there were large background villains to be fought
every year. In the fourth, they went with a mystery to be solved, and
finally, in the sixth season, the story confronted the love-hate triangle
between Boyd, Ava, and Raylan Givens, paying back debts and
bringing to a close latent conflicts in an agonizing and vibrant manner.
The riveting Hannibal, meanwhile, spent two seasons following the
same formula: the murder of the week overlapping with the game of
cat and mouse that Will Graham and Jack Crawford fought with Dr.
Lecter in Baltimore. However, the third season dynamited the formula
and opted for seven chapters set in Italy, and six dedicated to a single
case: the Red Dragon.
In order to complete the possibilities of the flexi-narrative, it is
necessary to refer to a final group. These are products that are
procedural in principle, but which, as their stories progress and a
considerable degree of viewer loyalty builds, progressively become
more serial in nature, allowing them to delve into the mythology of the
series. The X-Files (Fox, 1993-02), to recover one mythic example,
devoted barely three episodes of its first season (including the pilot) to
investigate an alleged plot by the US government related to the
abduction of the Agent Mulders sister. However, in later rounds, the
monsters-of-the-week took a back seat in favor of conspiracy theories.
Something similar happened with Supernatural (The CW, 2005-),
originally a horror and adventure road-movie. As the story progressed,
the number of episodes devoted to a direct struggle between the
Winchesters, Lucifer and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
increased, to the point that the fifth season (the last commanded by
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Between, vol. VI, n. 11 (Maggio / May 2016)
Eric Kripke) spent more than half of its episodes widening this
diabolical conflict.
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
The term TV novels has been minted for series such as these. The
hive of characters, relationships, political alliances, family lines and
conflicts of all kinds in premium products like Deadwood (HBO, 2004-
07), The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007) or Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011-)
would have been unthinkable twenty years ago. Consistent with their
artistic ambitions, these series can develop over ten plot lines per
episode, exhibiting an overwhelming narrative flow that recalls
elements of nineteenth-century literature. In addition, by having more
footage to develop plots and without having to spend time on
repeating intrigues and motifs, conflicts and dilemmas multiply,
enriching the moral and political diversity of the stories. As Nelson
writes, this longer time to develop the narrative allows for more
complex storytelling and character-developing in relation to changing
circumstances; it can, in short, deal with shifts in fortune and the
consequences of actions over time (2007: 121).
Along with the ability to deepen plots, themes and characters, the
other grand narrative novelty that seriality provides regards the form,
as we will discuss in the second part of this article.
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6
To further complicate the possibilities, the fourth season introduces a
variation which doubles the narrative universes: both of the known worlds
adopt a new version where a key character (Peter Bishop) has never existed,
causing events to vary considerably once more.
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
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presented to the viewer) and the ideal time of the story (ordered
chronologically, without ellipses, which has to be reconstructed by the
viewer in accord with the data that provided by the story)7. Playing
with these two variables, series like Lost, Damages (FX/Direct TV, 2007-
12), or Flashforward (ABC, 2009-10) have stylized television narrative,
leading it to peaks as refined as they are devilish.
The rapidly-cancelled Boomtown (NBC, 2002-03), by reclaiming a
little known precedent, builds a fragmented narrative that, in addition
to disrupting perspective when confronting the crime of the week,
proposes truth as a puzzle that always starts with a flash-forward
(travelling to the future). Damages manipulated two time periods that
advanced in parallel, thus establishing a perverse text that robs the
viewer of details and saturates the story with narrative landmines. The
frenetic pace of Breaking Bad also makes use of these narrative jumps to
generate tension. Emulating the opening sequence of the series, the
fifth season begins with a trip to the future that shows its protagonist
in such a surprising situation that the viewers anxiety to know how he
got there serves as the narrative lever.
The most paradigmatic example of this was Lost, which created a
narrative maze that used temporal leaps as a structural element in each
episode, via flashbacks that allowed us to discover more about the
characters. Following the finale at the end of the third season, the
puzzle was further enriched with flash-forwards and, as if that were
not enough, the whole plot upset and the shows narrative universe
relocated to the seventies. In its sixth and final season, the narration
plays with the multiverse, replacing the trips to the future and
journeys to the past with flash-sideways: stories of the characters in an
alternate world. Ultimately, Lost ended up creating a hellish labyrinth
of sweeping scope, creating one of the most sophisticated
narratological hieroglyphs in pop culture and forming a riddle to
which every one of its devoted viewers wanted to bring order.
Many other writers have sought to imitate Lost without success,
offering series that propose unfathomable, prolonged mysteries; an
7
Cfr. Gennette 2007.
15
Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
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Between, vol. VI, n. 11 (Maggio / May 2016)
8
This idea of aligning diegetic time with real time had already been
played out on film. The best-known example of this is High Noon. On
television, another example comes from an episode of the 1990s comedy
series Mad About You (NBC, 1992-99), entitled The Conversation (9.6). In a
22-minute scene that was, moreover, taped entirely in a single take, Paul and
Jamie Buchman (the series main characters) hover anxiously outside the
door of the babys bedroom for 22 minutes, waiting for her to fall asleep.
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
Oh, right, the goat! So funny! Youre going to love this. So later
in that night, the goat locked himself in the bathroom and was
eating one of Robins washcloths and wait, hold on. Robin wasnt
living here on my 30th birthday. When did this happen? Oh, wait,
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the goat was there on my 31st birthday! Sorry, I totally got that
wrong. (The Goat, 17.3).
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
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4. Conclusion
I can tell the difference between life and television, Jeff.
Television makes sense: it has a structure, logic, rules... (Abed Nadir
in Anthropology 101, 1.2). Throughout these pages we have tried to
describe the logic that Abed claims for television narrative in
Community, mapping out the types of fictional narrative has on offer on
the small screen. As if he were the alter ego of Creighton Bernette of
21
Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
Treme, when David Simon bellowed his now-famous fuck the average
viewer before Nick Hornby (2007), he was unwittingly defining the
latest stage of in the history of television fiction. It is a stage in which
this perfect storytelling machine has squeezed out, in the most lucid
and entertaining way imaginable, all the narrative possibilities of the
television story, with the result that the average viewer has become
accustomed to much more stringent narrative standards. Moreover,
technology is not only altering the way stories are told, it is altering the
way they are received: it is now possible to view and re-view a scene,
contrasting your ideas with your friends on Twitter, or contributing to
a blog post or wiki where thousands of people, in what Mittell has
dubbed forensic fandom (2015: 288-91); it is also possible to provide
data clarifying the intrigue or unexpected twists of last nights episode.
This forces creators to refine their craft: any story, subject to
overexposure on the web, forces anticipation of even the smallest
details, since any inconsistency or slip will be quickly discovered and
disseminated. Because intelligent audiences not only demand clever
stories; they are also creating them.
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Works cited
Arthurs, Jane, Contemporary British Television, The Cambridge
Companion to Modern British Culture, Eds. Michael Higgins
Clarissa Smith John Storey, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2010: 171-78.
Buckland, Warren (ed.), Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in
Contemporary Cinema, West Sussex, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Creeber, Glenn, Serial Television: Big Drama on the Small Screen, London,
British Film Institute, 2004.
Dickason, Rene. The Popular on British Television: Global
Perspectives, National Priorities, Local Preferences, Cultural
Studies Journal of Universitat Jaume, I.8 (2010): 57-74.
Gennette, Grard, Discours du rcit. Paris, Points Essais, 2007.
Innocenti, Veronica Pescatore, Giugelmo, Los modelos narrativos de
la serialidad televisiva, La balsa de la medusa, 6 (2011): 31-50.
Kozloff, Sarah, Narrative Theory and Television, Channels of
Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism, Ed.
Robert C. Allen, Oxon, Routledge, 1992: 67100.
Krutnik, Frank, In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity, London-
New York, Routledge, 2006.
Lotz, Amanda, The Television Will Be Revolutionized, New York, New
York University Press, 2007.
Mittel, Jason, Film and television narrative, The Cambridge Companion
to Narrative, Ed. David Herman, New York, Cambridge
University Press: 156-71.
Mittel, Jason, Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television
Storytelling, New York-London, New York University Press,
2015.
Nelson, Robin, State of Play. Contemporary High-End TV drama,
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2007.
Newman, Michael. Z., From Beats to Arcs: Toward a Poetics of
Television Narrative, The Velvet Light Trap, 58 (Fall 2006): 16-28.
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Alberto N. Garca, A Storytelling Machine: The Complexity and Revolution of Narrative Television
Sitography
Hornby, Nick, My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to
it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader,
The Believer, 5.6 (2007), http://www.believermag.com/issues/200708/
?read=interview_simon, online (last accessed 21/01/2016).
The author
Alberto N. Garca
Email: albgarcia@unav.es
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The paper
Date sent: 30/01/2016
Date accepted: 15/04/2016
Date published: 31/05/2016
25